“Guess I do,” Routt agreed warmly. He looked at Wint and grinned. “Don’t know that I’d want her living in the same house with me,” he said.
“Why not?” Wint asked.
“Damned bad for my peace of mind.”
Wint flushed. He was a curiously clean, innocent chap in some ways. He felt a little ashamed by the mere existence of the thought which had prompted Routt’s covert suggestion. “I’m glad you dropped in, Jack,” he said. “Good to see you here again. Like old times.”
If he had been less busy with the work of his office, and with his study, Wint might have thought more about Hetty during the next few weeks. But—he didn’t. They saw each other daily, and once or twice he realized that she was not as good-natured as she had been. There were times when she was sullen.... For the most part, however, he did not think of her at all.
Now and then he had short letters from Amos. Dry, friendly letters, with some impersonal advice sprinkled through them. In the third week in May, Amos wrote that he would come home, arriving the Thursday following. Wint was glad he was going to see Amos again. He had gone to Amos’s house once or twice for the suppers Maria loved to cook for him, but when Agnes came home, he gave that up. Agnes bored him. She was too vivacious. Joan was quieter, calmer, infinitely strengthening and strong.... Jack Routt was seeing a good deal of Agnes, he knew. Routt seemed no longer bent on the wooing of Joan, though he had told Wint, months ago, that he meant to go in and win. Wint joked him, one day, about this, and Routt said frankly:
“You and she have made up. I’m not the sort of a chap that trespasses. When I see I’ve no chance, I know how to make the best of things.”
Wint thought that was straightforward and decent in Routt.
Amos was to come home on the afternoon train, Thursday. Wednesday evening, Wint spent at home. Chase and Wint’s mother went upstairs early to bed, but Wint was busy with a case book from Hoover’s office, and remained downstairs, the book open on the table, the lamp beside him.
He did not realize that time was passing. Wint had a certain faculty for concentration; and the dead quiet of the sleeping house allowed him to enclose himself in the world of his thoughts. He heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing but the matter he was reading. He did not hear the clock strike midnight, and one o’clock.